1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for image processing that utilize photographing information such as a photographing data and time, and camera information such as photographing position information, photographing direction information, photographing magnification information and message information.
In addition, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for image processing that are utilized in a digital photoprinter and the like for photoelectrically reading an image of a film, or directly receiving a digital image, thereby obtaining a (photographic) print on which this image is reproduced or an image data recording medium (hereinafter simply referred to as “image recording medium) having the reproduced image data recorded thereon, or performing network distribution.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a camera or recording various kinds of photographing information in a photo film, and a camera having the Global Positioning System (GPS) function for determining a current position based on a signal from a satellite and recording a date and time as well as a place together with a photo when photographing is performed have been developed.
By using a camera recording these various kinds of information, a high quality print can be obtained that gives full play to the function of the camera and performance of a light-sensitive material utilizing the various kinds of photographing information.
For example, the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 9-37203 discloses a method for, in addition to displaying a photographing location and the like on a photographed image together with the image based on the GPS function, specifying a position of sun light and the like at the time of photographing, determining whether the photographing is backlighted or not against the sun light from sun position information and photographing luminance information, and adjusting density and color balance of a photographed image by combining to use a photographing location, a photographing direction, other photographing information and so forth.
In addition, the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 8-36226 discloses a method for classifying into groups of photographed images by information on a photographing date and time, a photographing location, whether an electronic flash is used or not, an exposure amount, and a printing size, and setting printing conditions for each croup.
For example, there are a method for forming groups by classifying photographing dates and times in light of predetermined conditions and controlling exposure corresponding to groups that are determined to have an identical photographing date and time, and a method for forming groups according to photographing location information acquired by the GPS system and controlling gradations and exposure corresponding to groups that are determined to have an identical photographing location.
However, the method disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 9-37203 can display a photographing location but does not have any measures for density failures and color failures other than backlight, and therefore, has a problem that appropriate image reproduction corresponding to the photographing scene is not necessarily possible.
In addition, the method disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-36226 is arranged to control exposure according to various kinds of photographing information such as a photographing date and time as well as a photographing location but, since exposure is not controlled by assuming a subject or a photographing scene itself, there is a problem that the control of exposure cannot be changed according to whether a photographing location is indoors or outdoors, whether a subject is a person or a scenery, and so forth, and appropriate image reproduction corresponding to the photographing scene is not possible as well.
Moreover, since appropriate gradation control corresponding to a photographing scene is not possible, there is a specific problem as described below.
That is, while color failure measures are taken in order to prevent a reproduction print from getting greeny by illumination light, there is a problem that a color green cannot be represented well if the color failure measures are applied to photographing outdoors (for example, especially in a forest region).
Furthermore, there are problems that a black part in an image photographing a nightscape becomes thin and flat, and that, when a snowscape is photographed, white snow becomes gloomy, and so forth.
On the other hand, when a film image is read using visible light, a film scanner and the like are commercially available that are capable of detecting and correcting a dust and a tarnish by reading the film image using infrared ray light in addition to visible light. However, in order to read a film image using infrared ray light, there is a problem that hardware increases such as an infrared ray light emitting light source.
In addition, also commercially available are software and the like for acquiring an image read as digital image data in a personal computer (PC) and the like, displaying the image on a monitor and the like, and manually removing an unnecessary object such as a wire in the mage displayed on the monitor. However, since the removal of unnecessary objects such as erasing wires by such a commercially available software is manually corrected while an operator looks at a monitor display of the PC, there is a problem that this is time consuming and complicated.
Incidentally, as printing of an image photographed on a photo film (hereinafter referred to as film) such as a negative film, a reversal film and the like onto a light-sensitive material (a photograph paper) a so-called direct exposure (an analog exposure) is conventionally the main stream that projects an image of the film on the light-sensitive material and performs areal exposure of the light-sensitive material. On the other hand, in recent years, a printing apparatus utilizing digital exposure is practically used, that is, a digital photoprinter for photoelectrically reading an image recorded in the film; converting the read image into a digital signal, which is then subjected to various kinds of image processing to produce recording image data; a light-sensitive material is exposed by scanning with recording light modulated in accordance with the image data, thereby recording an image (latent image) which is then processed photoelectrically to produce a (finished) photographic print.
Since the digital photoprinter can process an image as digital image data, it can compose a plurality of images and divide an image, and also can compose characters with the image data processing, which enables output of prints that are freely edited/processed according to uses. Moreover, since the digital photoprinter can not only output an image as a print (a photo), but also can supply image data to a computer and the like or store image data in a recording medium such as a floppy disk, the image data can be utilized for various uses other than a photograph.
As described above, the digital photoprinter photoelectrically reads an image of a film, converts the image to digital image data (density data), and grasps the state of the image by analyzing the image data, thereby sets image processing conditions according to the image. Then, the digital photo-printer acquires image data for output with regulated exposure conditions in printing by processing the image data according to the image processing conditions.
Thus, the digital photoprinter preferably performs correction of dropouts and blocked-ups of an image attributable to backlight, an electronic flash photographing and the like, processing of sharpness, correction of color or density failures and so forth, thereby can obtain a high-definition print on which a high quality image is reproduced that cannot be obtained with a conventional direct exposure.
However, since a sort of an image to be photographed in a film is not fixed, but may be various scenes such as a person, a scenery, a flower, and the like, even if image processing conditions are set by analyzing image data that is acquired by photoelectrically reading an image of a film, image processing conditions appropriate for the image might not be necessarily acquired.
On the other hand, there has been conventionally proposed a digital photoprinter that not only analyzes image data but also acquires information representing a photographing scene (scene information) to set image processing conditions according to various scenes.
For example, the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 11-239269 discloses a digital photoprinter that gives scene information to each frame of an image in advance, acquires the scene information together with the image, and adopts an optimized image processing algorithm for each scene in print processing, thereby sets image processing conditions according to the scene information.
Further, scene information here includes, for example, a person, a flower, a scenery, a nightscape, an interior, fireworks, snow, a setting sun, a still life and the like, and is designated by a photographer from a camera at the time of photographing and given to the image by magnetically and optically recording outside an image region of each frame of a film.
However, the above-mentioned digital photoprinter disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 11-239269 has problems that a photographer has to take the trouble to input scene information at the time of photographing, which is complicated and is a considerable burden for the photographer, and that, since a piece or scene information to be inputted is limited as being selected from those set in the camera in advance, the camera cannot necessarily cope with all the scenes.